Due to recent increased incidents of information theft, individuals, as much as businesses, feel the need to destroy financial and personal records in order to protect such confidential information. The security purposes served by shredding documents include prevention of identity theft, credit card and bank fraud, and even espionage.
Electric paper shredders were invented in the 1930s, but for many years, their cost and bulk made them accessible only to corporations and government agencies. In the mid-1980s, paper shredders became more affordable and were designed on a smaller scale to accommodate small office and individual users. These personal shredders were still not economical, though, until in the mid-1990s, prices of paper shredders dropped further, into the “affordable” range. At about that same time, identity theft became common, and the use of personal shredders increased dramatically.
Institutional and even criminal use of paper shredders to destroy sensitive documents and incriminating documentary evidence of wrongdoing has brought the paper shredder even more into public focus when large companies have tried to hide wrongdoing by feverishly shredding documents while a government fraud investigation was underway or about to begin.
When individuals shred their sensitive documents and throw the shredding out with their other garbage, there are orange peels and coffee grounds mixed in with the shreddings. Identity thieves are thus frustrated in their efforts to piece together documents that have been shredded.
Therefore, there exists a need for a lightweight, hand-held, battery-powered paper shredder that is convenient to use and compact for storage in a desk drawer or on a desktop.